Summer is the perfect time to catch up on light reading, and five recent science fiction and fantasy novels deliver the perfect balance of simple pleasures and food for thought. Mark Frost's first novel, "The List of Seven," was a giddy and inventive Holmesian pastiche that chronicled Arthur Conan Doyle's adventures in the days before he created Sherlock Holmes. Now Frost picks up the saga a decade later with THE SIX MESSIAHS (William Morrow; 404 pages; $23). Once again, the fate of civilization as we know it is at stake.

Having achieved worldwide celebrity for his Holmes stories, Doyle undertakes an American tour. His ship has barely departed from Southampton before a new crop of real-life mysteries presents itself. A team of assassins, bent on stealing one of the world's great religious texts, kills one of the passengers, an event prompting a reunion for Doyle and the long-lost Jack Sparks, the extraordinary man who served as the model for Holmes.

Once in the United States, Doyle and Sparks hook up with other pilgrims heading westward, spurred on by dreams of a black tower rising out of the desert and intimations of approaching apocalypse.

Frost partly avoids repeating himself by moving the action to America and expanding the cast of characters to include a loquacious rabbi, a sword-wielding Japanese monk, a female Indian tracker and a bounty hunter who is spectacularly unlucky in love.

He missteps, however, in resurrecting the villain from "The List of Seven." Although Holmes had to contend with Professor Moriarty on numerous occasions, he didn't have to do so every time out of the gate. "The Six Messiahs" provides plenty of thrills, chills and tongue-in-cheek laughs, but it would have benefited greatly from a fresh antagonist.

Canadian writer Sean Stewart, author of "Nobody's Son" and "Passion Play," offers a decidedly offbeat fantasy in RESURRECTION MAN (Ace; 248 pages; $22.95). It begins with the protagonist, Dante Ratkay, performing a makeshift autopsy on what appears to be his own dead body, then becomes even stranger as it explores the return of magic to the mundane world.

Although it features angels, minotaurs and golems, "Resurrection Man" is at heart a book about family. The Ratkays harbor their fair share of secrets, including the true paternity of Dante's brother, Jet. As Dante searches for a way to arrest the cancer growing inside him, he discovers he must also use his newfound psychic powers to heal the wounds that still pain his parents and siblings.

Stewart deftly balances the surreal and the familiar. The mechanics of magic are left mysterious, but the vagaries of the human heart are dissected with clarity and compassion. "Resurrection Man" confirms Stewart's reputation as a singular talent with enormous potential.

Bari Wood presents a resolutely old- fashioned tale of the supernatural in THE BASEMENT (William Morrow; 326 pages; $17.95). When middle-aged Connecticut housewife Myra Ludens remodels the basement of her centuries-old home, she hopes to expunge the damp and mustiness that have always made the area so unpleasant. Instead she stirs up something even worse than the odor of mildew -- perhaps the malevolent presence of the witch who once lived on the property.

After Myra and her circle of rich, bridge-playing cronies perform a makeshift exorcism, things get out of hand. People who hurt Myra or her friends start dying in strange ways, including attacks by bees. Is the witch's ghost avenging itself on the world, or is it Myra herself who bears the blame for the deaths?

Wood, whose novels include "The Tribe" and "The Killing Gift," doesn't attempt any kind of innovation in her new book, instead offering a straightforward shocker with a few neat twists sprinkled throughout. Horror novels in which victims are killed by hordes of bloodthirsty ticks are out of vogue now, perhaps for good reason. Nevertheless, Wood manages to ring sufficient changes on familiar material to produce a quick, undemanding but enjoyable summer thriller.

Edited by Peter Crowther and Edward E. Kramer, TOMBS (White Wolf, 4598 Stonegate Industrial Blvd., Stone Mountain, GA 30083-1905; 346 pages; $19.99) presents new work by a host of popular writers, including Michael Moorcock, Michael Bishop and Charles De Lint. The 23 stories explore final resting places and other tight spaces, drawing from the traditions of science fiction, fantasy and horror.

In Ben Bova's "In Trust," a terminally ill billionaire thinks he has devised a way to cheat death and take his fortune with him. Lisa Tuttle presents the tale of a wife led astray by a promise in "White Lady's Grave." "But None I Think Do There Embrace," by S.P. Somtow, provides a sardonic look at an opera diva unjustly doomed to See Page 10

eternal imprisonment on a set from "Aida." William F. Buckley turns to outright fantasy for the first time with "The Temptation of Wilfred Malachey."

The theme of "Tombs" is loose enough to allow for a wide range of styles and subjects, and the anthology never feels repetitive or predictable. Crowther, who is British, and Kramer, an American, have selected work from both sides of the Atlantic, and their critical judgment is spot-on.

British comics writer Peter Milligan scripts one of the strangest monthly comics, "Shade, The Changing Man." He also concocts extremely peculiar miniseries. ENIGMA (Vertigo/DC Comics; 208 pages; $19.95), with art by Duncan Fegredo, ranks among his best, most accessible work.

Michael Smith, a fastidious and extremely passive young man, discovers to his horror that a favorite cartoon character from his childhood has sprung to life. As a mysterious masked figure wreaks havoc around him, Smith begins a quest that leads to revelations about existential truths, his sexual identity and the purpose of magical purple lizards.

"Groundbreaking" is an over- used word, especially in comics, but "Enigma" lives up to the term. In the 1980s, other comics writers mixed philosophy and superheroics, but none dared to grapple simultaneously with the issue of homosexuality, especially with the frankness displayed here. Milligan and Fegredo devise a new mode of graphic storytelling and execute it flawlessly. Weird, witty and smart, "Enigma" deserves an audience beyond the confines of the comics readership.